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How cells’ ‘lava lamp’ effect could make cancer drugs more powerful

Discovery that synthetic compounds form concentrated droplets inside cells could shake up drug development — including the hunt for coronavirus treatments.
  1. Elie Dolgin
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There’s a long-standing assumption in the pharmaceutical industry that when drug molecules enter a cell, they spread through it evenly — but, says biologist Rick Young, “that could not be further from the truth”.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01838-z

References

  1. Klein, I. A. et al. Science 368, 1386–1392 (2020).

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  2. McSwiggen, D. T., Mir, M., Darzacq, X. & Tjian, R. Genes Dev. 33, 1619–1634 (2019).

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